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MyWikiBiz, Author Your Legacy — Sunday June 09, 2024
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As you guessed from the title, you'll be hearing more of my outstanding adventures in the most impressive desert in the world. Watch your step, hold on to your reins and don't close your eyes, I'll be taking you on a wild ride! As always, keep your eyes on this space!
As you guessed from the title, you'll be hearing more of my outstanding adventures in the most impressive desert in the world. Watch your step, hold on to your reins and don't close your eyes, I'll be taking you on a wild ride! As always, keep your eyes on this space!
==The Soaked Sahara, Part Two==
One entry in my travelog cannot do justice to the grandeur of the Sahara - in fact, two is still an absolute disgrace to a geographical feature which I honestly believe deserves volumes of books devoted to it. Nevertheless, this is the most justice I can give it for now, especially in this rare time when its parched vegetation is quenching its thirst on these four days of unrelenting rain.
My safari in the Sahara continues as we explored another mountain range on the fringes of the desert. Out of all the lands we visited, the rain's effects here were the most pronounced: what were once bare-stone gullies have been transformed into speedy, meandering rivulets, darting about between the rocks and flowing off the edges to create gushing snow-white waterfalls. Even the air was affected by this meteorological anomaly: instead of the clear blue skies which so often accompany deserts, the entire landscape was blanketed in a dreary gray layer of fog, which hampered visibility and made for a lousy day of photography.
As the group plowed into this thicket of mountains, we were met with suspicious-looking lakes of vibrant green water, which looked unsafe to drink or even touch. Per the course, we were also hounded by many merchants, most of them wearing mopey faces and trying to sell various gemstones and these strange rocks which almost defy explanation - they are roughly circular as opposed to being flat or oblong, and protruding from their central point are several sand-colored, thick planes which taper to a fine edge and are rounded at their ends. Allured by the presence of amethyst, my Arabic professor had a field day doing business with these merchants - she stood out as a tourist more than the rest of us despite being a native Tunisian!
The issues of navigating this terrain in these damp conditions soon became miserably manifest to us all: the dessicated dirt that once covered the stairs leading up to the summit had soaked up so much moisture that it transformed into a thick layer of semi-solid mud. that it was like walking through mounds of marshmallow fluff - every step was a laborious task as the goop ensnared our shoes, only relenting its indefatigable grasp after we concentrated our entire weight and mind into releasing our feet from its grapple. Some of the girls on our trip had the misfortune to be wearing sandals or flip-flops - they were no match for the mud, and every step threatened to strip the flimsy pads straight off their feet. Of course, the mud won many of these battles, which left them to stand on one foot until a kind passerby could dig up the stolen
For those of us who were wearing more secure footwear, delving into the interior of this formation was only a slight impediment, and we were able to see the summit of the mountain in all of its rejuvenated splendor (but only as much as the fog permitted): large stones lined out a path for us which ran alongside the natural troughs, which housed the small streams of rainwater all racing down to collect in those toxic-green lakes. The path was by no means cruising; every perch and step had to be carefully calculated lest I risk a tumbling fall, especially considering how slippery they were, but it was similar enough to the hiking expeditions I embarked on during my camping trips as a child and more recently in Maine for me to navigate it deftly.
Right before we began the tricky climb up to the first summit, two things immediately caught my attention: there was a large palm tree growing on the other side on the stream, its roots twisting through the rocks and apparently finding rich soil underneath them. More impressive, however, was a deep croaking sound which undulated through the air and which I could feel on the skin of my face. A brief exploration through the fog revealed that this sound came from a toad, who kept on making his incessant din and would stop at no distraction. More pertinent to me was a rocky ascent which I could feel swaggering at me, daring me to climb up it. Of course, I gave into this temptation and proceeded to dart up it until the mud had so stymied my movement that I was forged to trudge the rest of the way up. Oh, how vast and clear the view would be were it not for that infuriating layer of fog!
The struggles against the mud that we fought earlier were but petty squabbles compared to the tall staircase leading directly to the caps of the mountains. So thick were these slabs of mud that one of the crew members donning flip-flops decided to go barefoot - despite stepping on tiny sharp pebbles embedded in the mud, it no longer took ten seconds just to climb up one stair. No longer hampered by the mud, I plowed up the mountain with her and reached the stony summit. Strewn all over the place were more of those sharp pebbles, this time without any mud to cushion them - despite her feet hurting, my climbing partner did not don her filthy flip-flops until she had an opportunity to clean them off. Out in the distance, I could make out a large black monument, stained gray in my vision because of the fog, of a large mountain goat. (As expected, the pictures did not turn out.) I could spot a few members of the UD crew were along this same line of sight - they had to cross a rickety bridge to get over to this section of the mountain range. My wanderlust was taking a hold of me, so I left my climbing partner for a short while to get close to the edge of the mountain.
Teetering on the brink of death! I love it! To begin my daring journey, I poked about on some fingery protrusions of the mountain, taking utmost care with every step I walked. The ground here was still covered with those flaky-sharp pebbles - luckily for me, though, I was wearing decent enough shoes for climbing. I went to the tips of one of these stretches of stone and kneeled down at the very tip of it, knuckles white and clenching the stones for my dear life. The downward incline of this foot of the mountain was easily at least 75°, and were it not for my natural surefootedness I would have surely suffered the fifty-foot plunge down to the streamlet. The visitors to the mountains appeared tiny from this vantage in the fog - the fog was thicker near the top and relatively thin at the foot, so I could make out the slight shine of polyester raincoats and a few commands for controlling this two-way traffic, mumbled in universally understood terms. After this risky journey, I returned to the safety of my climbing partner, who I assisted down the mountain and back to the SUVs.
Beyond this trailblazing across new and strange terrains came the quintessential event to partake in an Arabian desert: yes, we drove into the interior of the country to go riding on camels. The grounds where the camels were kept were nothing out of the ordinary: it had that slight rank odor so reminiscent of a poorly-maintained zoo, and sand-coated balls of dung lined the path in various conditions, ranging from freshly prepared to sufficiently smudged. The camels made no attempt to hide their foul activities; they even had the audacity to do this while we were feebly attempting to get atop their high-set backs. With some assistance from the director, I was able to seat myself up on the camel, the largest in a caravan of three and whose name was Ra'd (رعد), the Arabic word for Thunder. With a signal from the driver of the caravan, the camel slowly lurched its way up on all fours, and we embarked into the great expanse of the desert.
My expectations for what riding a camel would be like were wildly shattered - I thought that sitting on a big lump of fat would be exceedingly difficult, but I could have easily ridden on it without holding on to the steel handlebar attached to the saddle (and indeed, I went hands-free for some stints). I was in a caravan with two other members from the UD crew, and our herd driver took us on a bumpy trek through this dune-filled stretch of desert - the only green things in sight were some trees in the far distance. I preferred to simply gaze off into the distance and enjoy the ride - it was not smooth by any means, but I had a strange sense of security sitting on the camel. More than anything, though, it was the vastness of the dunes that struck me - realizing that this was less than a fraction of the entire desert caused a wave of humility to pass through me.
The congregation of camels came to a stop too quickly for my tastes - despite my reluctance, I had to get off and obey the stubborn lazy camel for once. The caravan drivers made a noise between that of gurgling and growling, after which the camels ceased their bumbling forward and proceeded to lower themselves to the ground. First, they lowered their hind legs simultaneously while keeping their front legs erect (this happened suddenly enough to take me by surprise - I did not realize that I was nearly six feet off the ground until the camel made me smell reality), then they lowered their front legs and tucked them to their sides, knees bent. The group stretched their aching thighs and sauntered about in this depression between the dunes, until a masked man in blue came up riding a oaken-brown steed.
Oh, the joy I felt upon just seeing this stallion! Long has it been a goal of mine to ride a horse, and this mysterious figure and his partner, who followed soon after him, was offering to take us out on individual rides. I readily signed up for this, hoisting myself up on the stallion and securing my feet in the stirrups. Whatever excitement I had upon seeing these courser was immediately forgotten the instant it set foot with me on its back in front of its azure-clad owner. We bolted on into the desert, jarringly jostling up and down, up and down, and before only a few seconds I was able to catch this rhythm and move in sync with the horse. For those brief seconds, I felt completely at liberty, the sandy winds beating against my face and puffing up my clothes. Chills of excitement ran down my spine; I had never lived the experience of riding a horse before, yet the joy and intensity I felt atop its back was unlike anything else I had ever done.
After some last-minute stretching on two legs, it was finally time to head back to the four-legged beasts, who idly waited for us to savor our leisure time. This trip was not as relaxing as the ride into the interior since the camel to my right, Barack (بارك), use my stirrup-fastened leg to scratch its neck, against which my leg muscles were no match. Aside from this uneasy setback, I still had an enjoyable enough sojourn atop my camel. The walk back saw the camels scaling more dunes as well; I could feel the incline as they trudged up a small hill and accomodated for it by shifting my weight forward. We also had a few accidents; two of the more finicky camels threw their riders off, sending them slamming into the coarse sands. Despite a wrist injury from a misplaced camel foot, there was no permanent damage suffered by these two, and we went on as a merry group to delve into the country another day.
Ugh, I still have so much more to report, and so little time - we arrive back in the States in two days! This trip has really flown by - I hope to get at least two more entries done after this one, including a reflection on the whole journey which I will write after spending a few days in my native America.
